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To: ninenot
Brilliant logic--it's called the fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc (because one event followed another, the cause was the first event.)

Geez, try and read more carefully, my posts aren't hard to miss. I've nowhere claimed that DDT banning was responsible for the increase in the raptor populations.

Let me show you another: after women got the vote, we had the Great Depression, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Thus we can conclude that women are the cause of American involvement in wars of the 20th Century.

Kind of a pathetic analogy. Here's why...

Prior to the ban on DDT, the specific claim was made that by banning it, the populations of Peregrine Falcons and Bald Eagles would rebound.

DDT was banned and the populations rebounded. That would appear, on it's face, to confirm the predictions of those who proposed the ban. May or may not be true, but it lends some credibility to their position.

Therefore, this is not a simple matter of a post hoc fallacy even being in play. If the ban didn't lead to the population rebounds, something else did at preciesly the time of the ban. That's a nice coincidence, isn't it? So, I'm not ready to leap to any conclusions just yet.

OTH, were there specific warnings by opponents of women's suffrage that women's vote would lead to would lead to the Great Depression, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam?

No, so your analogy fails.

Better try another, and better, proof.

Perhaps you've gleaned by now that you've stepped in it... I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm asking questions.

Some have raised doubts that DDT caused eggshell thinning. Fair enough. There is still the question of what caused the rebound in the populations of the specific birds of prey in question.




68 posted on 07/03/2002 7:50:33 PM PDT by Sabertooth
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To: Sabertooth
If the poster's info is correct, it was demonstrated that raptor populations were INCREASING post the advent of DDT to about 1960.

Thus one cannot claim that DDT in and of itself DECREASED raptor population.

Following this, it would be just as dangerous to maintain that the post-1960 DECREASE in raptor population was caused by DDT usage.

I am perfectly willing to admit that abuse of any substance will have serious effects--even the abuse of accounting has had serious effects.

At the same time, the loss of lives (and in the USA the expense of replacement chemicals along with the still-unknown effects of some of them) is worth consideration.

72 posted on 07/03/2002 8:07:15 PM PDT by ninenot
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